There are at least four major problems that are common in today's Instant Messaging (IM) systems including: “screen name” namespace problems, privacy problems, lack of acceptable and automated Instant Messaging message archiving, and service provider compatibility/software deliverability problems.
The namespace problem can be broken down into three sub-problems, as follows:
“Screen names” are not unique across IM providers. In today's Instant Messaging software, each Instant Messaging service provider maintains a separate and proprietary “screen name” namespace. This leads to users of one Instant Messaging service not being able to freely communicate with the users of a different Instant Messaging service provider because names in each namespace are not universal, so, for example, the user “Johril” in AOL's Instant Messenger (AIM) might refer to John Smith, while “John P in Yahoo's Messenger might refer to John Jones.
Obtaining a desired name is difficult, and will only get more difficult. The namespaces available within each Instant Messaging provider are extremely crowded. For example, when signing up with the largest of the Instant Messaging providers, AOL's Instant Messenger (AIM) service, a typical user would rarely succeed with their first choice for a screen name because there are over 90 million names already in use. In the case of AOL, this problem will only get worse as over 3 million new users sign up for AIM each month.
“Screen names” frequently have little or no connection to a person's “real” name. Most Instant Messaging screen names are names like “doglover3”, “corvette33”, etc., since, as described above, names like “John Smith” have all been taken. Therefore users end up with screen names which are hard for others to remember. This problem is of particular concern in the business world where universal and recognizable user names are essential for conducting business.
The privacy problem can be seen as follows. In the Instant Messaging environments available by current Instant Messaging providers a particular user's presence online can easily, or even automatically, be detected by others. When a user begins an Instant Messaging session using one of these Instant Messaging providers, all other users who are interested in this user are notified that the he just went “online”. Some Instant Messaging providers do provide some protection against this “presence detection”. They may allow users to set an option to either let “no one” know that they are online, or to block certain people from knowing they are online. Unfortunately, these type of features are cumbersome to use since they are not automatic and force users to constantly manage who can “see” them and who can't.
The Instant Messaging archiving problem can be seen as follows. Some currently available Instant Messaging client software allows users to save transcripts of an Instant Messaging session as a file on their computer disk. But the client software does not allow them to file these sessions away, title them, etc., as they would with email, and the feature is cumbersome enough that most users either don't know it exists, or simply don't use it. This gives Instant Messaging a disadvantage when compared to email because it does not allow the user to maintain an automatic archive of what was discussed in the Instant Messaging session.
There are several problems associated with Instant Messaging service provider compatibility and software delivery. Today, Instant Messaging service providers require users download a particular piece of software to execute on their computer. This type of Instant Messaging software causes at least three major problems.
Lack of interoperability causes a significant problem. Each Instant Messaging service provider only supports its own Instant Messaging protocol and client software. Clients from one Instant Messaging service provider, using that service provider's Instant Messaging software can typically only communicate with other people who use the same service provider and software. A person cannot arbitrarily send an Instant Message to another person, unless that other person uses the same Instant Messaging service provider and software that they do. For example, “Joe” uses AOL's Instant Messenger, and “Jane” uses Yahoo's Messenger. Even if Joe and Jane know each other's screen names, they cannot communicate with each other since they are using different Instant Messaging service providers.
Lack of platform independence is another problem. Today's Instant Messaging service providers and software typically will only execute on a limited number of hardware platforms, so users on non-supported platforms will not be able to communicate with users on supported platforms.
The inability to work through network “firewalls” causes additional problems. The current Instant Messaging service providers and software offerings will typically not work through “firewalls”. Since most business enterprises have firewalls in place, these programs preclude users inside the organization from communicating with users outside of the organization. Additionally, as home networks become more prevalent, the use of firewalls will become more common and the significance of this problem will increase.